䷚ 頤 Nourishing. With firm correctness there will be good fortune. We must look at what we are seeking to nourish, and by the exercise of our thoughts seek for the proper aliment.

The semester started with a hip hop concert at Oula Livehouse – Every act was great, but we really enjoyed the performances by Dungeon Beijing and Lazyair. The crowd was really fun and lively, opposed to the normal state you see Chinese people in.

Misfortune

During this time I was still living with Nik, crashing in his place until the first of September when I could feasibly find roommates and get a place to live. I went through the usual relator that everyone seemed to trust to get a place.

I found two guys on a wechat group to find a place with. We looked at one place which I really liked and the other guys liked too, but they wanted to see one more location before deciding on it. They texted me saying they wanted to buy the place and that I should just sign the lease for all of us.

Well they never responded or came back to the house, so I was on the hook for paying for the security deposit and finding new tenants. It was a stressful couple of days: I hung up posters around campus, asked everyone if they needed roommates, thought I might be on the hook for a lot of money… but finally two roommates were found and we all moved in. We signed the contract on September 3rd and just needed to go through the police registration.

We took our documents to the police station we would normally go to for this kind of thing, but were told to go to a different police station by the officers after looking over our documents. They gave us an address in a far-away part of the district. We argued that we would normally go to this station, and a nearby worker behind the desk agreed with us. They bickered behind the desk for a bit before finally making a phone call and confirming we needed to go to this address. We ignored them and went to a different police station, which told us to go to the same place.

We arrived by taxi at this large, unmarked building – All it had on it on the outside was an emblem of the communist party. We talked to the security guards who told us to wait for some police officers to escort us upstairs. They came and took us to a conference room on a floor towards to the top of the building and explained the situation:

We signed the contract on September 3rd vs the official contract start date of September 1st, making it look like we resided in China illegally for those two days after the contract started – we needed to register within 24 hours after the contract was signed! They told us how lucky it was that they were so nice – they never told our teachers, didn’t fine us some large amount of money, and told us again that we should be really grateful. They made some small talk, the one that spoke English gave us his number (if we were to have any other problems we should call him directly, he said), and we were on our way.

I labeled this section “misfortune” because it really was a tough time. I thought I was on the hook for a lot of money, then had to really lead the process of getting the house set up and going through the registration. After all this work, besides getting the internet set up we didn’t have significant problems afterwards and it was a pleasure to live in that apartment.

Second Semester: “Culture Class”

I figured that since someone usually trends towards the median of a group’s skill over time, I wanted to make my way to the highest level of Chinese in the program at school. This class was “Culture Class” or 文化班, where we would be focusing on using Chinese to express our thoughts and opinions about cultural concepts, like the “human flesh search engine”, Shanzhai goods, and Deng Xiaoping’s Reform and Opening Up. We had to do a presentation just about every week.

This class was engaging and informative thanks to the other dedicated students and the teacher who had a real interest in teaching us. She taught two different levels of classes: the highest level and the beginner classes. She knew what sticking points us foreigners had when learning Chinese, and really encouraged us to talk and voice our opinions about topics.

However, when joining the class I realized how little I knew. The class was full of people who have studied much longer and harder than me, and almost everyone spent more cumulative hours learning the language than I did. I could tell that I was in the bottom 10-20% of the class, compared to being at least in the top half in all Chinese classes leading up to this.

To say I rose to the challenge and became on par with the rest of the class would be an overstatement. The mood was more congratulating me on improvements and the teacher patiently helping me through troubles I had expressing my presentations. There was definite improvement, and it was great to get to know my classmates and hear quality Chinese throughout the hours spent in the classroom.

The Rest of The Semester

At this point I wanted to “take China by the horns” and experience what I would not be able to in America. This included understanding tea, cooking, popular youth culture, and meeting people. Here’s a list of things I got up t:

• Went to Xianlin campus a few times for jam sessions, visiting friends, and attending a AIESEC club meetup
• Cooked some hairy river crab with a friend (大闸蟹)
• Was sponsored by some Shanghai district’s communist party committee to attend a “World Renowned Enterprises Youth Talent Development Forum”
• Was sponsored by a travel agency to go to Hangzhou in exchange of them taking pictures of us
• Saw a showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show put on by foreigners
• Went to two Halloween parties, dressed as a baoan (Chinese security guard)
• Went clubbing a few times (Future)
• Volunteered at a yard sale
• Watched my friends perform in an air band competition and acted as their manager
• Went to Shanghai for Western New Years

2019 and Chinese New Years

After the semester ended, we entered the period of Chinese New Years. Although the holiday was in February, it felt like it started around western new years.

During this final period, I really tried to jump into China. I didn’t have school or responsibilities for a month or two, so I passed HSK5, tried to make friends in local bars to practice my conversational fluency, cooked food in our kitchen, looked for jobs back home, kept up my Chinese studies, and traveled around the area to places like Suzhou and Wuhu. At this point, anything I’d write here would be covered better by the journals I wrote during that period.

Beijing and Departure

When I bought a plane ticket to return home, I scheduled it to leave Beijing in the beginning of March. My friend worked for an aircraft company near the airport, and he was generous enough to let me stay at his place again, especially considering they had a spare bedroom.

I left for Beijing on March 1st with two bags that were about 20kgs each and a backpack. It was a backbreaking adventure lugging it around the train station. Luckily the train only took four hours.

In Beijing, I bought some last minute gifts, saw some sights (Temple of Heaven, Beijing University, and Qinghua University among other places), spent some quality time with Nik and his girlfriend, spent some time with a friend from Nanjing that lived in the city, and enjoyed my last days in the country. We were there during the Two Sessions so the sights I wanted to see around Tiananmen Square were closed down.

When it was time to leave, it was a short taxi to the airport from Nik’s place, and after a goodbye I was off. I had a spare seat next to me on the plane, and double the usual leg room. What a good trip back to the states!

The next (and last post) in this series will be more a retrospective of my time in China.